Siege of Granada (1856)

The Siege of Granada occurred from 12 October to 29 December 1856 during the Filibuster War. The coalition army of Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador besieged the Nicaraguan capital of Granada, which Nicaraguan president William Walker ordered burned to the ground.

Background
On 12 July 1856, the American filibuster and Nicaraguan army commander-in-chief William Walker came to power as President after executing the previous president, Ponciano Corral Acosta, for treason, and he held a rigged election in which he was the only candidate. The late president Corral had requested for Honduras and Guatemala to intervene in Nicaragua and overthrow Walker, as he believed that the fall of Nicaragua to the American filibusters would lead to the fall of the rest of Central America. Soon, Costa Rica and El Salvador also joined the alliance against Walker, and their Central American coalition army invaded Nicaragua in 1856.

Walker, who had come to power as an ally of the Liberal Party of Nicaragua, soon abandoned his original democratic views. He made unwise decisions due to his distraction with his mistress Dona Yrena, ignoring the advice of his lawyer Byron Cole. For instance, he made the unwise decision of betraying his multibillionaire ally Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had used his steamship monopoly to send Walker troops, supplies, medicine, and money. Walker revoked Vanderbilt's transit license and gave the contract to Vanderbilt's rebellious employees C.K. Garrison and Charles Morgan, angering Vanderbilt and provoking Vanderbilt to send agents to Costa Rica to help the Costa Ricans capture Walker's steamships on the San Juan River. As the Central American army invaded, Walker took irrational actions such as reinstating slavery to boost his country's faltering economy; he believed that Native Americans were already submissive, and that a combination of black and Indian slavery would be beneficial. Many of Walker's black soldiers deserted him as a result.

Siege
On 12 October 1856, an army of 4,000 Central American troops began to besiege the Nicaraguan capital of Granada. On that day, Colonel Jose Victor Zavala and his Guatemalan troops assaulted the city square, and Zavala, bragging that filibuster bullets did not kill, stole the filibusters' flag and took it back with him. On 14 December 1856, the city was completely surrounded, and Walker - who was betrayed by his mistress - ordered his lieutenant Charles Frederick Henningsen to burn the city to the ground. Henningsen obliged, ordering his soldiers to put the city to the torch. The chaos saw the soldiers kill scores of Nicaraguan civilians, and violence broke out as the city was looted and burned. William Walker's brother James Walker was shot in the head while maniacally firing blindly at the smoking air, while Byron Cole was hit over the back of the head with a rock by Nicaraguan civilian Leandre Concepcion Cepeda as he struggled with his horse. It took the filibusters two weeks to destroy Granada, and, when they were done, they left an inscription which read "Aqui Fue Granada" ("Here was Granada"). On 1 May 1857, Walker's army - left with no supplies or outside support - was forced to surrender to the US Navy and be repatriated to New York City.